I’m Not Even Talking About That Fucking Debate

Y’all notice how I don’t talk about political figureheads anymore? Cuz that’s what they are — figureheads. The people doing the work behind the scenes have made it clear for the past 40 years that they were fine with the illusion of progress until it went “too far.” Until the illusion started to feel real. And in every area where that illusion became more tangible, we saw white rage and white backlash. We saw that rage grow and the backlash become more and more explicit and encroaching. The people who could choose progress over oppression decided that oppression was better and have embraced it with their whole chest. They disappeared the people fighting it time and time again and now the oppression they thought would never touch them is actively hurting them. This is what they wanted when they thought they were safe from its effects but the truth was they were never safe. It was always touching them. They just chose to ignore it because it didn’t feel all that bad.

I used to believe the lie. I work in public health and I thought that learning more about how to address these systemic issues would fix shit. I now know they helped our oppressors accelerate its impact. I now know that all these institutions are designed to grind progress to a halt under the guise of “fixing” it. I now know that this society was never meant to be humane or cooperative. It was always meant to be oppressive and destructive. It was always designed to destroy, to grind people into nothing so that some could do whatever they want without consequence. Its…